Flushed with frustration, the women of Australia can hold on no longer

By Monica Dux

20 July 2018 — 12:30pm

One night, long ago, I was walking home after dinner with some friends when I was overcome with the urge to go to the toilet. I could blame the dodgy noodles I'd eaten for what happened next, but it wouldn't be entirely accurate. Because it was, in fact, centuries of sexist urban design that did me in.

Sweating with panic, knowing that I'd never make it home, my mind raced through the options. Unlike the now infamous poo jogger, I could not bring myself to squat in someone's yard. I knew there was a pub nearby, which gave me a moment of hope, until I remembered that it was a Thursday night, an evening when the place was always busy. Which meant that there'd be a ridiculously long queue to use the Ladies, necessitating a wait that I simply could not endure.

Illustration: Robin Cowcher

And so, like the brave soldier who goes over the top, even though he knows it spells certain death, I attempted to jog home. I will say no more about what happened next, except to observe that when you're busting to use the toilet, jogging does not help.

If I'd been a man, this story would have ended very differently. I would have simply strolled into that pub, then breezed straight into the loos, leaving again a few minutes later with both my dignity and underwear intact.

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Among the many inequalities that still exist between men and women – the gender pay gap, the radically lopsided distribution of domestic labour, and the appalling discrepancy between women's and men's superannuation contributions – there is also the less conspicuous, yet also significant matter of unequal public toilet access.

If a woman plans to attend any theatre in our city, she must either radically limit her fluid intake, or be prepared to make an Usain Bolt-like dash for the toilet at intermission. Otherwise, she'll either miss the show, or miss the toilet. The same goes for airports, pubs, cinemas, and pretty much any public place where large numbers of people gather.

The simple fact is, public toilet arrangements throughout Australia are blatantly unfair, and it's women who suffer. This is a problem that crosses generations and demographics, but of course it inevitably impacts more on those who are less able-bodied, breastfeeding mothers, older women, those who have children in tow, who have a compromised pelvic floor, or who might have eaten a bowl of dodgy noodles earlier that day.

Toilet apologists will argue that this is a function of biology, not chauvinism. Cubicles take up more room than urinals, so women get less useable toilet space. It's also quicker to use a urinal than it is a cubicle. A women can't just zip down her fly and let it go.

But this raises a deeper question. Given that this problem has existed since the inception of modern plumbing, why doesn't toilet design in public places reflect the reality of how we all use the loo? If women need more space, and more time, why haven't we been given it? If architects, urban designers and plumbers know that there's far greater demand in one segment of the population, why haven't they accommodated it? Could it be because – heaven forbid! – one segment of the population is deemed to be less important?

When I think back to all the toilet queues I've stood in over the decades, the one positive thing I remember is the conversations I've had while waiting, bonding with strangers, sparked by mutual eye-rolling at the fact that we were being forced to wait so long, while the men's loos were empty.

Imagine if we could harness that collective frustration. I envisage a suffragette-style protest, a week of Wee Action, kicking off on a busy post-work drinks Friday night, as activists start marching into men's toilets, occupying the cubicles and then settling in, really taking their time. Possibly after blocking the urinals. And if that didn't work, maybe we could take our protest out onto the streets. A squat-in. Doing like so many men, who have no compunction about weeing wherever they like.

Of course it doesn't have to come to this. In most cases, unisex toilets would help, while also putting a stop to mean-spirited attempts to use public toilets as a weapon against trans people. Failing that, maybe urban designers just need to start trying a bit harder. Because I'm pretty sure that if men had to deal with toilet queues the way women do, a solution would have been found a long time ago.